The World Wide Web (“the Web”) is a system for publishing information, in which users may use a web browser application to retrieve information, such as web pages, from web servers and display it.
The Web has increasingly become a medium used to shop for products. Indeed, thousands and thousands of different products—as well as other items such as service contracts—may be purchased on the Web. A user who plans to purchase an item on the Web can visit the Website of a Web merchant that sells the item, view information about the item, give an instruction to purchase the item, and provide information needed to complete the purchase, such as payment and shipping information.
It is typical for a user to view information about a product on an “item detail page.” The information provided on an item detail page may include such information as the item's name and source, a picture of the item, a description of the item, reviews or ratings of the item, a price at which the item is offered for sale, and a control—such as a button—that may be activated by the user to order the item from the web merchant.
In some senses, shopping at a web merchant is significantly more compelling than shopping at a physical merchant. For example, a user that shops at a web merchant can complete a shopping task without the extra inconvenience, time cost, and pecuniary cost associated with visiting a physical merchant in person. Also, a user may shop at two or more web merchants simultaneously, permitting him or her to simultaneously gather information about the product from several sources.
Although shopping at a web merchant has several distinct advantages such as those discussed above, shopping at conventional web merchants sometimes has certain disadvantages. One such disadvantage is that ordering controls displayed for items by many web merchants may enable a user to order an item that is not currently available from the merchant, or may at least initially mislead a user to believe that the item is available. This may happen, for example, with an item that, in addition to being out of stock at the merchant, is without prospect of replenishment, such as an item that is out of print, or an item that was formerly obtained from a single supplier that has ceased carrying the item. Inversely, ordering controls displayed for items by many web merchants may prevent a user from order an item that is currently available from the merchant, such as an item that, though it is not in physical inventory, will be received by the merchant from a supplier in a short time. This second phenomenon can prevent a web merchant from effectively accepting pre-orders for a highly-anticipated item whose release date is in the near future.
Also, many web merchants report an amount of time needed to fulfill an order for one or more items in a way that is inaccurate, imprecise, or both. For example, a typical merchant might report that fulfillment of an order for a particular item will take “1-2 weeks,” based upon a determination that the item is out of stock. This report may be inaccurate if the item is one that can be resupplied and prepared for shipment in 2 days (and thus unnecessarily prevent a user from buying the item who needs the item to be shipped within 5 days), or if the item is one for which resupply will take more than 2 weeks (and thus unnecessarily disappointing a user who does order the item and needs it to be shipped within 2 weeks). Additionally, this report might be regarded as imprecise because of the wide range of time specified.
Additionally, many web merchants have trouble quickly and effectively “switching off orderability” for an item that is otherwise available for ordering. This can be useful, for example, when an item is the subject of a safety recall, or when a new law makes selling the item illegal. Moreover, in cases where it is possible to disable ordering for an item, this may requires overriding electronic records of inventory in the item to inaccurately show no inventory in the item. Because such electronic records are typically treated as an authoritative accounting of actual inventory, this sort of overriding may result in “losing” the actual inventory, in the sense that the merchant no longer knows that it possesses the inventory.
Further, for web merchants that has inventory for an item in a number of different locations, it can be difficult for a certain period of time after an order is placed for this item to accurately assess the availability of the item for additional ordering. Where such an assessment is inaccurate, the web merchant may misinform prospective purchasers about the availability of the item for ordering.
In view of these disadvantages of conventional systems for managing inventory and ordering for web merchants, a more effective approach to managing inventory and ordering for web merchants would have significant utility.